Regression Session. Positive and negative trends for the offseason.

The offseason is in full swing with the NFL Combine and free agency right around the corner. The NFL Draft is a bit further out but we are in the thick of mock draft season which gives every fan and fantasy manager endless scenarios to think through. These may be the dark days with no meaningful football in sight, but there is still plenty of news to pay attention to and rumors to speculate on.

As fun as it is to look forward to the events to come, we also shouldn’t move on too quickly from last season. There is still a lot we can learn from diving into the data from 2023 to help us stay one step ahead of our competition in 2024.

Positive Regression

DeAndre Hopkins

The 2023 season was already something of a bounce back campaign for DeAndre Hopkins who topped 1,000 receiving yards for the first time since 2020. Not only did he stay healthy which allowed him to accumulate season-long stats, he was also more efficient on a per-route and per-catch basis.

Hopkins broke the 2.0 YPRR threshold after two seasons below that mark and also posted his highest yards per reception number (14.1) since the 2017 season which was largely thanks to his career high aDOT of 14.8 yards.

Nov 2, 2023; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA; Tennessee Titans wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins (10) makes a catch against Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Joey Porter Jr. (24) during the second quarter at Acrisure Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

He ranked second among all WRs in team air yard share (44%) and end zone target share (52%) which resulted in a very valuable role for fantasy purposes. The PFF Expected Points model had Hopkins tied for the 12th most expected fantasy points per game among WRs in half PPR scoring. While his actual production was decent, he only finished as the WR29 in actual points per game which suggests there is significant room for improvement if he maintains a similar role in the Titans offense.

Projecting the Titans offense in 2024 is tricky as they have a new coaching staff and will have plenty of turnover within their playing personnel too. However, if we zoom out there are a few key pieces of information that suggest it could be a more favorable setup for Hopkins next season.

1. Derrick Henry is not expected to return to the team.
2. They had the second fewest pass attempts in the NFL in 2023. 
3. Their new HC was previously the OC for a Bengals team that had the seventh most pass attempts during the 2023 season.

Hopkins also showed decent chemistry with rookie QB Will Levis once he took over as the starter. Three of his four best fantasy performances of the season came in games where Levis took the majority of snaps at QB. Although the jury is still out on Levis’ long-term future as an NFL QB, we saw enough to know that he is willing to be aggressive downfield. Levis led all QBs with an average depth of throw of 11.1 yards last season which helped Hopkins record 428 receiving yards on targets of 20+ yards, the most he has had in a season since 2017.

Unless the Titans make a major splash in free agency or the draft, Hopkins seems locked in as the primary target earner in this offense. If the passing volume goes up as expected and Levis makes any kind of leap in his second season the recipe is there for Hopkins to put up even better numbers than we saw in 2023.

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Marquise Brown

It was a very disappointing and injury plagued 2023 season for Marquise Brown which may end up costing him as he hits free agency this offseason. In a year with a loaded WR draft class and some big name free agents, the speedster may not have as much of a market as he would in most offseasons which could lead to him signing a prove it deal to help get his career back on track.

Although injuries are a concern, this will still only be Brown’s age 27 season which doesn’t put him anywhere near the WR age cliff. When looking at his full season stats, the picture appears pretty bleak as he posted career worsts for catch rate, YPRR, and yards after catch per reception. 

However, it is easy to forget that he actually started the season fairly well. Through the first six weeks of the season while playing with the functional version of Joshua Dobbs, Brown averaged nine targets and more than 117 air yards per game. Those are legit WR1 numbers. 

He recorded four games with more than 50 receiving yards during that stretch and scored three times. In his final six games of the season he only broke 50 receiving yards once and only scored one additional receiving TD. It’s hard to know how much of that decline was due to injury vs poor QB play (Clayton Tune was the QB for a handful of games during his bad stretch) but either way his situation should be better heading into 2024. 

Brown’s outlook will of course be landing spot dependent, but getting back to full health is the most important factor to him bouncing back in 2024. If he ends up signing with a team with above average QB play we could see Brown quickly return to being high-end WR2 for fantasy. 

Negative Regression

Jordan Addison

There were flashes of tremendous upside for Jordan Addison in 2023 as the Vikings rookie WR navigated a turbulent team situation to put up a strong 911 receiving yard and 10 TD season. There is no doubt that he has plenty of talent and should have a long, successful career in the NFL, but there are reasons for concern in 2024. 

The biggest risk to Addison building on his 2023 campaign is what the Vikings QB room looks like next season. Kirk Cousins is a free agent and is coming off of a torn achilles so the QB situation is still very much up in the air. Addison’s production was much better with Cousins at QB (no surprise there), most notably with 70% of his receiving TDs coming in those first eight games.

After the injury to Cousins, Addison’s fantasy production became much more inconsistent. To further complicate our analysis, Justin Jefferson missed a long stretch of games during the middle of the season (Weeks 6-13) which meant Addison didn’t have to compete with one of the league’s top WRs for a long stretch of the season.

Despite being forced to step into a larger role, Addison wasn’t particularly efficient on a per-route basis. He finished with 1.50 YPRR which is a fine, but somewhat underwhelming number relative to the hype he received.

Jan 7, 2024; Detroit, Michigan, USA; Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Jordan Addison (3) catches a pass for a touchdown in front of Detroit Lions cornerback Cameron Sutton (1) during second half at Ford Field. Mandatory Credit: David Reginek-USA TODAY Sports

The PFF Expected Points model confirms what I suspected from looking at his game logs, Addison ran extremely hot in the TD department. They have his expected TDs for the season at 7.6 and his 2.4 TDs above expectation make him one of the biggest outperformers at the WR position.

Finally, the Vikings were also one of the pass-heaviest teams in the NFL as they attempted the fourth most pass attempts of any team. If they fix their run game, we could see the overall pie shrink for the pass-catchers. Add in a fully healthy Justin Jefferson and a potential downgrade at the QB position and it could be a struggle for Jordan Addison to match his production from last season.

Brian Robinson

One of the more impressive developments of the 2023 season was Brian Robinson suddenly becoming a solid contributor in the passing game for the Washington offense. After showing minimal receiving chops throughout college and his rookie season, he racked up 367 receiving yards and four receiving TDs which really helped to bolster his fantasy value.

While this is a great development for his fantasy outlook, we need to be careful not to extrapolate this production without context. Robinson’s 10.2 yards per reception ranked second best among all RBs with a minimum of 20 targets on the season. He ranked fifth in YPRR among RBs, just behind the likes of Breece Hall and Alvin Kamara. It would be awesome if Robinson was suddenly an elite receiving back, but I’m not really buying it. 

A lot of Robinson’s receiving production came on a handful of big plays. In fact, he recorded a 20+ yard reception in six separate games after not having a single catch of 20+ yards in the 2022 season. While he does deserve some credit for improving as a receiver, plays like this one are more about being in the right place at the right time rather than doing anything special once he has the ball.

For some additional context, the PFF Expected Points model had Robinson at 206.2 expected receiving yards and 1.8 receiving TDs for the season based on his usage in the passing game. Those numbers would have still been a nice bump from his rookie year, but they help illustrate how unsustainable his receiving production was for his role. I wouldn’t be surprised if Robinson sees something similar to the 40 targets he got in 2023, but fantasy managers should have more realistic expectations for what he will do with those targets.